Utsukishiki Ayamachi: Beautiful Mistakes
by Blu Rose
Summary: ONESHOT. Sure, people always asked him about the Yondaime Hokage, but if they asked Jiraiya about his other students, what would he say? One died while the other delved into insanity?


**The recent events in the manga (with Naruto wanting to die with Sasuke when he goes to invade Konoha) have bummed me out. So I wrote this fic to try to bring up my pep. Actually, looking at it, it's not so peppy. Just remember to review at the end. Thank you and good night.**

_Disclaimer: Blu Rose does not own Naruto or any of its character. She only owns this story._

_Note: The main character in this story is Jiraiya's unnamed female student back when Minato was a child._

**X-X-X**

_**Kioku: Memory**_

Thinking back, before Akatsuki, before Kyuubi, before the war, she wondered if she would prefer her childhood over her life now.

Back then, she was a student of the famous Sannin Jiraiya, a powerful shinobi and student to the Hokage. But, she wasn't all that important to him. At least, that's what _she_ thought. She was the girl of the group—a drop of estrogen in a sea of estrogen that was her sensei and her teammates, one who was the highest-scoring student in her class: Namikaze Minato. The man who became the Yondaime Hokage and gave his life to protect his village. A ninja legend…

But you wouldn't hear that today. If someone ever asked Jiraiya-sama what his _other_ students had done, she wondered what he would say? _'One died, the other lost touch with reality?'_ Or maybe he wouldn't say anything at all, because who cares? Minato outshone the both of them, and received her jealousy, envy and scorn for the entirety of her ninja career. It was like her childhood all over again—only this time perfect big brother was replaced with perfect genius teammate. Trailing behind them. The worst student in the class. The child her parents always wished more like her brother. A zero in life and existence…

But she at least she wasn't alone in her hatred—which trumped her sensei telling her that hating people and pushing them away will only get her alone for the rest of her life. She had a likeminded comrade in her _other_ teammate. He wasn't too dumb, but not so smart that he was one of the best students in the academy. No, he was average…and she liked that. And best of all, he was hopeless on his own in the field, always preferring to ask _her_ for help over their genius teammate… Maybe it was fear of his intelligence and skill…or maybe he was like her and simply hated having anything to do with him. She loved the feeling of being wanted and admired. Is that what Minato felt when people showered him with praises?

Ah, yes… Perhaps the good old days weren't so bad after all…

_**Shousui: Heartbreak**_

…At least until the war. The reason why ninja came into existence in the already cruel and violent world was so they could be used as soldiers and weapons. And she considered herself something of a weapon—not a very good one, but a weapon nonetheless. After all, average shinobi like her were no better than cannon fodder for the big dogs to lure out their enemies.

Well, at least she had her former childhood teammate there by her side—not that genius Minato, AKA: the Yellow Flash of Konohagakure—to endure the pain and strife of war. And good riddance to him. Let him have fun running around with a bunch of brats in tow.

Until they got captured by the enemy. They were tortured to the brink of exhaustion. They killed him right in front of her—slit his throat. The enemy ninja doing it sure took his sweet time. She could see his blood flesh as it spurted small blasts of blood at her face, staining her skin and hair. Some got on her mouth and subconsciously, her lips licked it off, allowing her to taste the coppery sanguine of her friend's life(?). She couldn't even scream. She just stared at his limp corpse until they began to torture her once more. They took out her eye. Not slash it…but literally pulled it out.

She screamed bloody murder until they were all dead on the ground. The reason: Mr. Yellow Flash. Mr. Genius. Mr. Took-Too-Damn-Long-To-Come-To-The-Rescue. There he stood, asking her if she was alright. She wanted to cry. To curse him out. To blame _him_ for not coming in time to save them. But she couldn't. She just sat there, feeling drained, eyes dark and apathetic…without the will to live.

_**Kyouki: Insanity**_

She can't remember when she lost her mind exactly. All she knew was that it was after she quit being a shinobi. What was the point, after all? Sure, everyone would die someday, but why did _she_ have to give her life up for a village that only saw her as another face in the crowd, a failure, an average shinobi, a number in the files and a corpse to be recognized later?

To tell the truth, she hated the village. Hated shinobi. Hated how high the death rate was and how it often occurred amongst the young. Of course, that didn't bother her when she learned that her brother had died. If it weren't for her parents, she wouldn't have lived there. It also didn't bother her that her parents had died. In fact, she doesn't visit any of their graves to this day. And after retiring, after getting sick of the bloodshed and the frustration, she thought she could leave. But…she couldn't. It was as if some curse was placed on her. No matter how much she tried, her body wouldn't obey. She wouldn't…couldn't…leave that dreadful place.

Since then, she began to notice things. The people staring at her, stepping out of her way. The way people whispered behind her back about her temper tantrums, how she screamed when she was in her little apartment, how she often stood still and stared off into space around town. The Hokage faces staring down at her judgmentally, like the gods themselves.

And yet, Minato continued to be a pestilence in her life. He always came to make sure she was alright in his free time, when he wasn't training with his team or—according the whispers in the streets—seeing that red-haired tomboy Kushina. She didn't' know _why_ though. She hated him. She told him that to his face. And yet, he brushed if off, said she didn't mean it, and said that he cared because they were friends.

Oh, she almost laughed at that one. They weren't friends. She wanted nothing to do with him. She didn't want anything to do with the entire village. If she had her way, this entire place would be destroyed.

_**Kyuubi: Nine Tails**_

When she was young, she heard tell of the legendary nine-tailed demon fox. Its tails could cause tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes with ease. It could demolish an entire village with ease. Its fur was the color of blood and its eyes burned with hellfire. It was attracted to places with intense hatred and malice. Maybe that's why it came to Konoha all those years ago. The gods—or the devils, perhaps—heard her heart's desire for the destruction of her prison that didn't exist.

Oh, it ripped through shinobi like paper. It tossed them about like ragdolls. Blood spilled, corpses laid about the battlefield. That's what she heard in the aftermath, anyway. It was all going along well and it seemed like the dreaded nine-tailed beast would breach the human wall and attack the village, crushing it for the one who summoned it, when the recently made Yondaime Hokage—her former teammate Minato—came and died sealing it into a child.

It was like he hadn't done enough to her while she was a ninja. He had to ruin her mood while she was retired and trapped in the godforsaken village he swore to protect. And all that left over hatred transferred over to the child that her freedom was supposed to be sealed into. The fox's container—because she'll refuse to see it as a human being, not until it unleashes the key to her freedom—is a little boy with sunny blonde hair and blue eyes. He looks like Minato, but that only serves to fuel her hatred more.

_**Heiwa Peace**_

She endured so much over the years. Shinobi, war, Minato, her master, the Kyuubi's failure… But she was finally free. A person named Pain attacked the village of Konoha, after she endured many years of remaining locked up in her house, with only the occasional genin dropping groceries. Chaos swept the village in a way that hadn't been seen since Oto and Suna attacked it three years ago. Buildings toppled, shinobi fell, and she was caught in the chaos of war for the first time since she retired from being a ninja. Her own house fell on top of her while some terrifying beast trampled across the district. Something pierced through her skull, cracking it open, and stayed there.

At last, she was free. No more Konoha. No more ninja. No more living in this cruel, twisted world.

She hoped…she had better luck…in the next…life…

**X-X-X**

**This was the most depressing fic I wrote in a while… I really had to try with this one. Seriously. Just review and tell me what you thought of this disturbing piece.**


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